John Wick: Chapter 4 blasts out of the gate on a mission to be the greatest action movie ever made. By the end of its fist-pumping, wince-inducing run, it has a legitimate claim.
The fourth adventure of the world’s most monosyllabic assassin is the franchise’s biggest, clocking in at nearly three hours and sending Keanu Reeves’ titular hero on a quest from New York to Paris, with stops in Osaka and Bulgaria thrown in just for kicks (and punches, gunshots, gouges, and stabs). It’s an exhausting and thrilling ride, crafted with such reverence for its action sequences that it could single-handedly justify an Oscar category for stunts.
If you’re not onboard with the franchise by now, too late; the film wastes no time filling in the uninitiated on what happened in John Wick: Chapter 3. After John was shot by Winston (Ian McShane), the manager at the hitman hotel The Continental, and taken in by The Bowery King (Laurence Fisbhburne) to regain his strength and go to war with the Illuminati-like High Table, the fourth chapter opens with John healed up and ready to go; within five minutes, he’s in the desert putting a bullet in the brain of a High Table elder.
This sits poorly with the rest of the High Table, who call in the vicious Marquis (Bill Skarsgard), who enlists the help of John’s old friend Caine (Donnie Yen) to take him down. Caine might be an old blind man, but he’s still capable of violent athletic feats, and fueled by a desire to protect his daughter. The Marquis also enlists the help of The Tracker (Shamier Anderson), who has an uncanny knack for finding his prey, but who’s unwilling to finish the job until the bounty is a bit higher. While Wick seeks out a family connection that could secure his freedom, Caine and the Tracker are hot on his trail, and bloody mayhem occurs wherever they go.
For those who only know the John Wick franchise as the one where Keanu Reeves gets revenge for his dead puppy, the preceding paragraphs are likely incomprehensible. A formerly pulpy brawler has grown into a world-spanning saga with its own class structure, currency and Byzantine traditions. But its elaborate mythology is crucial to its success. In an age of mass shootings, a franchise so focused on bloody gunfights – particularly ones that often take place in public places – might otherwise be in bad taste. But by setting it in a world in which approximately 80% of the population seems to be an assassin or assassin-adjacent, the John Wick movies feel more like violent fantasy than anything resembling reality. At times, the convoluted rules have tied the franchise into knots, but in John Wick: Chapter 4, director Chad Stahelski and writers Shay Hatten and Michael Finch elevate the High Table to a place of mythic stature without becoming mired in complexity; the film is epic in scope, and its elaborate action sequences feel perfectly of a piece in this highly stylized world.
Stahelski has credited Sergio Leone’s films as an inspiration for the John Wick franchise, something that is certainly seen in Reeves’ performance as the brooding hero at the center. But in Chapter 4, every character is a larger-than-life archetype. Skarsgard, who often specializes in supernatural menaces, is grounded but no less evil as the Marquis, willing to shed gallons of blood in order to kill the legend of John Wick. The Tracker is eager to earn his place at the High Table but unaware of the eventual cost it will take, and his trusty German Shepherd helps audiences sympathize with him (dogs play a big part in this series). B-movie action star Scott Adkins has a brief role as a club owner and mountain of a man who John must bring down; it’s probably not a surprise that the fat suit doesn’t hinder Adkins in a bone-crushing action sequence. Returning players like McShane, Fishburne and the recently departed Lance Reddick add texture and character, and provide a cadre of friends to aid John on his journey.
When Reeves first stepped into Wick’s bulletproof suit in 2014, audiences weren’t initially sure whether it was a joke. The actor had been counted out after The Matrix, and the dog-centric revenge story seemed almost a spoof. But by now, Reeves has made John Wick possibly his most iconic character, a taciturn killing machine who only wanted a simple life but is now driven to bring down his former employers. Reeves continues to play the role with soulfulness and quiet humor. He can get fists pumping just by growling “yeah,” and while he continues to prove that the character is a badass killing machine, he also understands how crucial suffering is to Wick. The character was introduced as a man of grief; four movies in, the series hasn’t lost its emotional underpinning, but Reeves also continues to play Wick as a man prone to physical misery. He’s not a robot, blasting his way through foes. He’s cut, shot and pummeled, continually taking a beating and pushing through. A lengthy action sequence late in the film, set near Paris’ Sacre-Coeur church, takes John’s struggle to Sisyphean lengths, as he continuously tries to ascend the 300 steps only to be knocked back down.
However, Reeves is actually upstaged by Donnie Yen, who brings a world-weariness to Caine as well as an astounding array of badass behavior. Yen has been one of cinema’s great martial artists for decades, and was most prominently seen by Hollywood audiences in Rogue One (2016). Caine saunters away with the whole movie as Yen brings grace and sly humor to the film and creates one of the saga’s most complex characters, a man who sees himself as a friend to John Wick but who is bound by his obligation to the High Table. The film wisely gives Yen several lengthy set pieces in which his agility and speed are nearly superhuman.
John Wick: Chapter 4 streamlines its story from its predecessor, setting up a simple arc where John is on his quest to duel with the Marquis and walk away from the High Table’s clutches. The lack of depth and intricate plotting means the film lags a bit in its second act, but it’s still an improvement over the third entry, in which the series grew a tad too fond of its own mythology and chased its own tail for much of its middle portion. This entry peppers the story with constant action sequences, and the characters are elevated enough that even dialogue-heavy scenes are a joy. The film knows when to coast on style, lavishing the screen in rich colors, electronic-dotted landscapes and making the most of the Parisian landmarks – the Marquis does business out of Versailles and the Louvre, the High Table has a dispatch center in the Eiffel Tower, and the final hour sees John dashing around the Arc de Triomphe. The film was shot on IMAX cameras, and Stahelski gets great mileage from having the environment dwarf his characters, particularly in the Paris-set scenes. In one sequence, the hitmen take a break to contemplate mortality in a local church and the architecture rises high above, as if to remind them of the shortness of their lives compared the ancient city. It’s a piece of visual poetry not usually seen in pulp.
Keanu Reeves in “John Wick: Chapter 4.”
It goes without saying that the action sequences are the reason to buy a ticket to John Wick: Chapter 4, and this review could easily just end by saying the action is as great as it’s ever been. But that’s not true; the action in this film is better than the franchise has seen, which is saying something for a series known for pushing the limits of stunt work. Stahelski, formerly Reeves’ stunt double, stages a series of blistering action sequences. There’s a shoot-out turned nunchuck fight in an Osaka hotel and a no-holds-barred battle royale in a water-filled Bulgarian nightclub. Stahelski treats each fight scene like a dance number, filling it with intricate choreography that moves with surprising speed, unflinching brutality and just the right amount of humor – and, like the best musical directors, he films these scenes in long takes, making sure to get the performers’ entire bodies in the shot. Forget comparing this movie to any other action movie – Singin’ in the Rain is the best comparison (Yen is this film’s Donald O’ Connor).
The final hour might be the single greatest sustained action sequence in a Hollywood movie, constantly evolving and one-upping itself. There’s a battle in the streets as combatants dodge speeding cars. There’s a white-knuckle car chase around Paris. There’s a melee inside an old estate in which the camera floats above the action and takes it all in through a single, unbroken God’s-eye shot. And just when it seems the film seems to have revealed all its tricks, it heads to those steps outside Sacre-Coeur for one of the most exhilarating fight sequences ever captured – and this is all still with the climax to come.
The film culminates with a duel, which is staged with suspense and ends on a clever twist. I don’t know that the film quite earns its emotional – and sure to be contentious – ending, but by then, who cares? The audience has already been exhilarated, exhausted and pummeled into submission. If the film wants to close on a quiet moment and bring things full circle, it’s earned that right, even if the final moments are a bit of a fumble. Flaws and all, this is one of the great genre films of the last 10 years.
